9.19.2008

Southcon Movie Meme

1. Which actor do you think hasn't gotten the attention he/she deserves?I can think of a slew of Joss Whedon show alumni that I'd like to see become major stars, including Alexa Davalos,Christian Kane, and Amy Acker. Acker will be returning to the small screen along with Eliza Dushku in the upcoming Dollhouse. Dushku seems to have disappeared lately. I thought for sure Alan Tudyk would have made a bigger name for himself by now, but he only shows up in the occasional bit part. The most recent thing I saw him in was Death at a Funeral, and he had one of the funniest roles. Finally, why isn't Nicky Katt a household name yet? He played the best character on Boston Public and has this awesome dry delivery, but when he left that show he seemed to take supporting roles and bit parts in films. He plays a darkly hilarious scene for about five minutes in Sin City, but most recently he played an uncredited SWAT guy in The Dark Knight. What's up with that? I'm sure I can think of more names, but there are other questions to answer.

2. What is your favorite movie line?I think my favorite lines aren't so much about the lines themselves, as the context.

Superman II: After being powerless and absent for most of the film, the recharged hero shows up outside the window of the Daily Planet to challenge the Phantom Zone villains: “General, would you care to step outside? “

Sometimes it's about the delivery, as with Wallace Shawn's in The Princess Bride:“Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!”

And then there are those lines that somehow speak to me as an Italian-American:The Godfather:”Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”Goodfellas: You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little ***ked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to ***kin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

This one is classic:Easy Money:”My mother-in-law, for years I wouldn't kiss her face; I ended up kissing her @$$!

They don't make them like that anymore.

There was a time in my life when I had most of Wayne's World memorized. If I had to pick one line, I'd go with Ed O'Neill's psychotic soliloquy when he breaks the fourth wall like the main characters: ”I'd never done a crazy thing in my life before that night. Why is it, that if a man kills another man in battle it's called heroic; yet if he kills a man in the heat of passion, it's called murder?”

I also liked Alice Cooper's history lesson and the way Dana Carvey says ”I like to play” after his awesome drum solo. Honestly, that whole movie is one favorite quote after another, and I'm about five minutes away from walking away from my keyboard and popping in my old VHS of the film.

I feel morally obligated to include at least one reference from The Transformers The Movie: ”It's a pity you Autobots DIE so easily, or I might have a sense of satisfaction NOW!”

Sadly, that's another script I have nearly committed to memory, right down to the TV commercial gibberish spouted by the Junkions: ”Stop thief! No welcome wagon. Hello stranger, with that good coffee flavor for you. Offer expires while you wait, operators are standing by.

I'm going to start using that last line in bars; if it impresses a girl, I'm so in.

4. Is there a movie you hated when you first saw it and then later had to admit you were wrong?As I've said, I'm very forgiving, so if I hated something enough the first time, I probably wouldn't change my rating. Someday I may give Heat another chance; I saw it in college at an on-campus showing where the sound quality was really bad and I only made out words when Pacino raised his voice for inexplicable emphasis in the middle of sentences or for random prepositions. Perhaps under better conditions I might rate it higher. Certainly there were plenty of movies I didn't expect to like going in, and found that they weren't what I thought they would be. The Color Purple certainly comes to mind. I avoided it like the plague, and ended up being very moved when I finally watched it. Pretty Woman was another one I avoided, and certain scenes like the jewelry box closing/horse laugh scene still make me cringe, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

5. What is your biggest guilty pleasure movie - the one you're ashamed you enjoy?A lot of people probably think I should be ashamed of UHF, but I maintain that it's my best work. I mean, it's Weird Al's best work. Probably the aforementioned The Transformers The Movie and Wayne's World are guilty pleasures, if only for my level of devotion and the number of times I've watched them. There's probably a slew of stupid comedies I love that people may have blocked from their memories by now, including Airheads, The Man with Two Brains, and Dragnet.

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I have to tag three people, but feel free to tackle these questions even if you aren't Rey, Lyndon, or Sean.

MCF is a mild-mannered
artist from the suburbs.
His knowledge of obscure
comic book characters
is more powerful than Gladiator
of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard on
an ego-trip. Able to leap topics
in a single sentence faster than
a speeder-bike on the moon of
Endor, MCF has never written
about himself in the third person
and now dreads the day he
utters aloud the fateful phrase,
"MCF is gettin' upset!"